For many years, speaker grilles for use in automobiles have been integrated into, for example, door pads, package shelves, and other interior components of an automobile. Integrating speaker grilles into these components by way of a simple injection mold reduces complexity of assembling a door pad or package shelf. Various options, including differently configured speaker grilles, are available to meet the desires of an individual consumer. As such, a number of different inserts are adapted to mold a speaker grille simultaneously with that of a door pad substrate or other component. A die insert for forming a speaker grille typically includes a plurality of pins used to form a plurality of small acoustic openings in the speaker grille. The die insert is installed in a larger die used to form the substrate of a door pad or other component simultaneously with the speaker grille.
The level of complexity of the pin configuration used to form the acoustic openings in the speaker grille has prevented normal venting features from being included in a typical speaker grille insert as these features are with less complex dies and die inserts. In some instance, use of complex valves has been attempted, but has proven costly and prone to break. Therefore, inserts for speaker grilles have been manufactured from Porcerex® II, a porous substrate that allows air to pass through, but prevents liquefied polymer from passing through, while retaining the polymer used to form the speaker grille inside the die cavity. Porcerex® II is exceedingly expensive and difficult to form. In addition, venting characteristics the porous substrate have not proven effective to maintain desired cycle time for molding a speaker grille due to the slow diffusion of gasses through the substrate. Therefore, it would be desirable to develop a new insert for forming a speaker grille that overcomes the deficiencies known to the present porous insert.